Why do they bother with glass backs!

[dontpanicbobby]

Smudge magnets each and every one. People see the back of your phone mostly. Just sayin'.

 

[AZgl1500]

to make sure the little parts inside don't start playing with each other, ya know, how little chillin are when left to themselves...

 

[dontpanicbobby]

So sandwich them in glass? Never thought of that with my kids. Samsung is genius!

But still, if you're eating a pureed nut spread with a grape relish reduction paired with a brioche bun it could get messy.

 

[Fox Mulder]

This is why cases were invented. Most people are probably going to put it in a case anyway, and especially with a glass back since if you drop it it will break regardless of which side it lands on.

 

[zuben el genub]

I wasn't aware the Nexus 4 had a glass back. Being cheap and lazy, I never peeled the plastic off. I had someone look at the phone as I thought the back looked funny, and he laughed that I hadn't even noticed the clear plastic protector.

This was after 2/3years of having the phone


I picked bamboo for my Moto.

 

[mikedt]

Why do they bother with glass backs?

Because Apple did it first of all. And frankly I can't think of any other reason. And now many phones today, especially Chinese ones, seem to look like iPhone 5 and 6.

 

[Hadron]

Glass is radio-transparent (convenient with all of those antennae) and feels "more premium" than plastic. It's a shame that it's also fragile (even the fancy, expensive glasses are more fragile than other materials).

What's funny to my mind is that Apple's glass models also had their antennae in the frame, which wasn't necessary with a radio-transparent material and of course led to the infamous iPhone 4 "you're holding it wrong" debacle.

 

[Fox Mulder]

Plastic is just as radio-transparent and far less breakable. And easier to hold on to without a case.
Actually if the glass has any metallic content it wouldn't be fully radio-transparent. We don't know what's really in that glass.

 

[Hadron]

Aye, that's why I think that "premium feel" is the reason they use it over plastic.

Actually now that the techniques for integrating antennae with metallic cases are well-established there's no real reason for glass backs that I can see. Of the big manufacturers it's only Samsung who are really using glass backs now, but it doesn't seem to be working against them.

 

[Fox Mulder]

The sheeple will buy whatever is fed to them as the latest and greatest. I guess I'm considered an outcast since I'm still using my S5.

 

[zuben el genub]

I preferred the wood. Even some of the plastic from the Moto looked good.

Amazon must have bid on a load of Moto X Pures with very small scratches.. They were sold as being good enough for gifts and they had all the regular accompaniments that a new phone would have. All were 32G. All at a nice discount. I never found the scratch.

Plenty of space even with that crazy SD card either/or.

 

[Hadron]

I'm still using my HTC M7, which is a year older.

I think about upgrading it, as it is showing its age/usage a bit, but as it's still working OK there's also a good bit of me says why waste materials and energy replacing it?

 

[krokus]

Glass is radio-transparent (convenient with all of those antennae) and feels "more premium" than plastic. It's a shame that it's also fragile (even the fancy, expensive glasses are more fragile than other materials).

Plastic is just as radio-transparent and far less breakable. And easier to hold on to without a case.
Actually if the glass has any metallic content it wouldn't be fully radio-transparent. We don't know what's really in that glass.

Both depend on the formulation. Either can be made with metallic a component.

Using "Gorilla Glass" is going to be more scratch resistant than most plastic units. There could be a rigidity factor, too.

 

[Fox Mulder]

Not sure but I doubt any of the glass-backed phones use Gorilla Glass as it's mainly intended for use in flat display screens. Either way it will shatter on impact just the same as any other glass, drop your Gorilla Glass-screened phone onto a hard surface from a good height and see what happens.

 

[Hadron]

Even if it doesn't shatter, glass cracks easily. My (gorilla glass) screen has a single crack across it: I dropped it from just below shoulder height onto a cobbled street. It looked perfectly fine when I picked it up, but it actually had a tiny chip (the size of the very tip of a needle, just in the surface), and since the corner of a chip is a point of maximum strain the crack developed from the corners over the next few minutes until it reached the edges of the screen.

Since this is an M7, not the easiest phone to fix, I've just lived with the crack .

 

[zuben el genub]

Haven't had a US phone in a while. I bought an Oppo, which doesn't use glass on the back, and now the Moto X Pure which you can pick what you want from wood or plastic.

I think makers that sell in other countries are more concerned about what customers do with phones. They have to be.
Some mfg is moving to India, and while not trying to diss India, they do have some laws which leave westerners scratching western heads. Africa, too. Wireless seems to be easier to install than wired, there. But a lot of these customers are probably a lot harder on their phones than we are. We have access to all kinds of protection. And we demand things which make the units larger.